


Love the One You're With

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Recovery, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 16:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8063218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: (COMPLETE NOW) He says,  "Look, people say it all the time, they say it a million times a day and it doesn't mean anything, I say it it means something."  Melissa smiles so sad and so pretty and she says, "Okay, right, well, you've never said it to me."  Danny looks at her and says "That is not true, is that... that's actually true?  Is that true?"  And the question is...  Can Danny not say 'I Love You', or can he not say it to her because it's someone else he loves?  (Set post 6x25, the finale)





	1. Part the First

**Author's Note:**

> So the Valentines Day Episode aired and we realize that Danny's been with Melissa this whole time since season 4, through the rocky times of being there and not being there season 5, he's been with her for two years... Two years, and he hasn't said I love you. And what's more is... he somehow isn't quite aware that he's never said it, and when he's pushed, he STILL can't say it.
> 
> And I think to myself, this woman. This woman is lovely, she's gorgeous, she's sexy. She's funny, she's got a gorgeous head of hair, and a rockin' kickass body. She's been through hell with her ex husband and was brave enough to leave him and fight him even with a knife to her throat..... What the fuck is she doing putting up with a man that can be with her for two years a not say I love you?
> 
> This is a story about Melissa, because she deserves better. This is a story about Danny, because he is not this guy but he's being this guy and I need to know why. This is a story about Melissa and Danny, and it's a story about Steve because well honestly.... doesn't it always come down to Steve when it's about Danny? Let's be real here.
> 
> Thanks so much to pterawaters for encouraging me and soundboarding me during the earlier parts as I tried to figure this fic out!! This is part 1 of 2, and part 2 is done but needs some fine tuning and going over so I thought I'd post 1 while I chew on it!

> "I understand what makes a woman think that any man is better than nothing. I'll just never understand what makes a woman think she's got nothing."
> 
> Jeremy Goodwin in Sports Night, by Aaron Sorkin

 

* * *

 

When she walks into his hospital room she’s greeted by a pint sized linebacker screaming out _Lissa!_ and plowing into her legs.  She laughs and rests a hand on top of Charlie’s head and says, “Hey little guy, didja get me?”

Kono stands, vacating her perch next to Danny’s hips and hugging her.  “You look so pretty, that dress is so cute.”

“Oh thanks,” Melissa says, grinning at Kono.  Since meeting her, Kono has been the easiest of Danny’s coworkers to be around.  The most welcoming, the first one to welcome her in and sit down next to her and make her feel at home.  Not that anyone’s been unwelcoming, but Kono’s made the most effort.  

Steve turns from his conversation with Lou to wink and smile at her, and he’s always made an effort too.  She’s never quite believed it as much from him though.  It’s never felt completely sincere to her, not that she blames him.  She’s always felt like Steve was watching her with suspicion, and with how Danny’s ex-wife has treated him over the past few years, Melissa feels like she can’t blame him.  It’s still not a comfortable thing.

“Doll you are such a sight for sore eyes, c’mere lemme get a good look at you,” Danny says with a big smile and opening and closing both hands like ‘gimme gimme’ and she giggles as she bends over him to kiss him quickly on the mouth, his hands closing over her shoulders.  Warm hands, big, holding her there as his eyes search hers out and he winks at her again before brushing her hair off her face.  “So glad you’re here.”

Steve clears his throat.  “Do I get a kiss?  Also, is that a fruit basket I see in your hands?”

Melissa laughs and walks around the bed over to Steve’s side and gives him a kiss on the cheek, grinning back at Steve as she hands him an orange.  “Yeah, I’m not really sure what you guys are allowed to eat or not?  And I figure, fruit’s probably okay?  Or… less not okay than like, Kamekona’s shrimp or something.”  She puts a hand on Steve’s wrist.  “But please ask your doctor before you eat it.”

“Nah, I had oranges for breakfast, oranges are fine,” he says, peeling into it.  “Plus this one’s fresh, the ones this morning I think Nurse Ratched sat on they were so mushy.”

“She’s a perfectly nice nurse, Steve, you gotta stop calling her that,” Chin says, shaking his head.  “She won’t let him get up and do laps, so now she’s a Nazi.”

Melissa grins and makes her way back to Danny’s bed, perching next to him.  His fingers immediately twine with hers and she feels her heart swell.

The thing about Danny is that he is pretty much everything she wants.   Kind, good, sweet, a wonderful father, funny, fun.  Most of all, though, most of all he’s good to her.  He’s so good to her.  He wraps her up in his arms in his bed on the nights she sleeps there and buries his nose in behind her ear and smells her hair, one hand cupping a breast, and he holds her there.  He holds her there and she feels safe, and warm, and protected.

He would hate this, he would absolutely hate this, and she’ll never tell him, but he shares a lot in common with Frank.  Passionate, loud, takes up a lot of space.  Frank was a sweeping romantic too, always thought flowers would fix everything, nice dinners, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her nose and saying, _I’m so sorry baby, you know I love you._

That’s where it ends though, because Danny would never intentionally hurt her, not ever, not in a million years.  He’s loud and he’s passionate and he takes up a lot of space, but he is so careful of her.  He treats her like she’s made of precious things, of glass, of porcelain.  He treats her like she’s breakable, and he’s done so since before he knew her real name, since before he ever found out about Frank.  Now, he treats her even moreso like that.

In the two years they’ve been together there’s really only ever been one negative, but it’s big.  It’s huge.  It’s kind of everything, and that is, he holds himself back from her.  He puts all of his baggage on one side of the room and he won’t let her touch it, not ever.  He says he’s fine when he’s not, he puts on the fake smile for her when it’s the last thing he feels like doing, and he distracts her with kisses and a hand on her thigh when she tries to draw him out.

And never, not once, has he ever said I love you.  

“You’re worse than my Dad,” Melissa teases, shaking a finger at Steve.  “He was out mowing the grass the day after he had a heart attack, in 90 degree weather!”

Charlie stretches out on the other side of Danny, laying alongside his body as one hand idly plays with the gown covering Danny’s chest, poking at each little cluster of flowers in the design.  Danny’s arm is draped around him so he doesn’t fall off the side of the bed but his attention is on Melissa and she grips his hand even tighter.

Kono, Chin, and Lou excuse themselves to get back to work and that leaves her alone with the two boys and Charlie.  She squeezes his hand again and studies the way their fingers twine together.   His thick and tan, hers small and pale, the pink shimmering nail polish of hers clashing so starkly against his work-roughened skin.  They don’t match.

He raises her hand to his mouth and kisses it.  “S’matter?”

“I miss you,” she says softly, biting her lip.  “Not being able to come visit since the surgery, and not being able to see you or even know about it beforehand… I feel like I could have lost you and I never would have even known.”  She looks up into his eyes and feels close to tears.  “I know there wasn’t a choice, I’m not fussing, I just…. It scared me.”

“Hey,” he says, and then looks down at Charlie and jostles him.  “Hey buddy, why don’t you go see Uncle Steve for a bit, huh?”

“Kay,” Charlie says, and then catapults down to the floor and runs full tilt over to Steve’s bed, jumping up on it.  “Rah,” he says, and then so so carefully and gently, because he must’ve been reminded time and again it seems, lays his head against Steve’s chest and snuggles up close.  “Okay Uncle Steve?”

“Perfect buddy,” Steve says, and Melissa watches the fond smile spread over Steve’s face and thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things she’s maybe ever seen.  “Hey, you wanna help me name my scars?  I’ve got ten!”

“Steve,” Danny chastises, but then ruins it by cracking up laughing.

Steve grins and lifts up his gown to expose his belly to Charie.  “There’s three under this one, a little one here and two big ones here and here.”

Charlie points but doesn’t touch.  “Um.  Huey, Dewey, and Louie.”

“Okay, c’mere,” Danny says, and then grunts and groans and hisses as he attempts to move over.  “C’mon.”

“Stop, don’t move, oh my god, Danny, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” she says, gently resting a hand on his torso.

“Nah, it’s for show, he just wants sympathy points,” Steve says from the other side of the room, winking at her.  “He’s full of it.”

“Yeah, he’s mostly right,” Danny says, but Melissa knows he’s full of shit.  He tugs on her hand.  “Come on, c’mere.”  She lays down by his side and is careful to not tug on any sheets or any part of his gown or tubes in his arms.  He wraps his arms around her and holds her close, kissing the top of her head.  “I’m sorry I scared you, baby.”

“It’s okay,” she says, stroking her hand over his chest, scratching her nails over it.  “I just wish I could have been here.  Seen you before you went under.  I don’t…   I don’t know what good it would have done, but I just wish I’d known.”

“It happened so fast,” Danny says softly into her hair, fingers carding through it and brushing it back from her face, down her back.  “I was half out of my mind with worry and adrenaline, I just didn’t think to ask anyone, and they didn’t think… I’m just sorry, babe, we should have.”

He makes her feel so precious to him, the way he holds her, the way he kisses her temple.  The soft tone of his voice as he whispers against her skin.  He makes her feel like it shouldn’t bother her, shouldn’t hurt her, that when the shit all fell down, she didn’t even cross his mind.  She doesn’t want to be that person, the person that whines and complains and makes it all about themselves.  It makes her feel petty and selfish and needy, so she pushes it down and pats his chest and kisses his shoulder.

“It’s okay, I’m just glad you’re gonna be okay.”

+

“Okay, wait, wait,” Melissa says, taking the keys out of Danny’s hands and opening the door.  “Let me help you, huh?  Jeez.”  She laughs, opening the door with her hip.  “What’s the point of me staying here for a few days if you won’t let me even open the door for you?”

“To keep me company,” Danny says, grimacing and holding his side as he walks through the door, his hand fluttering around before landing on her arm to squeeze it as he smiles warmly.  “To cheer me up with your gorgeous face.”

“Okay, but also, to make sure you rest,” she says, tossing the keys in the bowl by the door.  She puts a strong hand on his back and pushes him towards the couch.  “To make sure you don’t reinjure yourself, to get you drinks when you want them instead of you getting up to get them yourself.”

“I don’t want you waiting on me hand and foot,” he says, but laughs as she gently pushes him down on the couch.  “They released me because I’m capable of functioning, Meliss.”

“And I’m going to make you dinner, and leftovers for lunch, and you don’t know this yet but you are in for a huge treat because my Gram makes the best vegetable soup ever and she sent me the recipe, so I’m going to make a huge pot of it and that’ll feed you for several days and that way you won’t have to worry about lunch while I’m at work and…”  She frowns at him, stilling from putting the blanket around him.  “What?”

“You’re just so sweet,” he says, reaching up and grabbing her hand, tugging until she’s straddling him.  “Come here.”

“No, stop that, you’re gonna make me hurt you,” she says, smacking his shoulder and getting off of him.  Instead she puts her hands on his shoulders and leans in for a kiss.  “No sex for 3 more weeks.”

He groans, closing his eyes.  “Seriously?”

She smirks at him. “Seriously, mister.  Now you sit, I’m gonna go make grilled cheese sandwiches.”

“You’re going to make me fat,” he calls after her, but happily she notices that he stays settled on the couch and turns on the television.  “Uh.  Melissa?”

She grins to herself as she pulls out the bread and sliced American cheese.  “Yeah babe?”

“Did you sneak into my house while I was incapacitated and tell my dvr to record every sport known to man?”

She rifles through his pots and pans to find one the right size to make two grilled cheeses at once.  “I sure did.”

“I seriously don’t know what I did to deserve you.  Gorgeous, sexy, _and_ thoughtful and considerate?”

“You don’t deserve me,” she says, turning on the burner and pouring coconut oil into the skillet.  It won’t be as tasty as butter would’ve been but it’s healthier.  Not that grilled cheese is all that healthy, but Danny needs some comfort food, and sometimes that trumps heathiness.  “I just stick around for the amazing things you do to me with your tongue.”

“Hey,” he says, startling her with a hand on her shoulder as he turns her around.  “I really don’t.  I’m glad you stay though.”

She looks at his serious expression and the sad tilt to his mouth and frowns at him.  “First of all, your butt is supposed to be on the couch, second of all, what are you talking about?”

“I know I’m not easy to be with,” he says, stepping closer, backing her into the counter.  “I’m loud and obnoxious and I’m not always the most considerate, and I tend to lash out when I’m upset which, these days, has been more and more often, and—”  He takes a deep breath and brushes her hair back from her face.  “And just, I know I don’t deserve you.  I really don’t know why you stay.”

 _I love you,_ she would say, but she hasn’t since that night.  Not since Valentine’s Day, since he wouldn’t or couldn’t say it back.  Instead she leans forward and kisses his nose.  “I think someone’s pain meds are making them melancholic, go sit back on the couch while I melt some cheese all over the place, cheese fixes everything.”

“Hey,” he says, and kisses her softly and sweetly, lingers long enough she can hear the coconut oil burning in the skillet.  “I really adore you, you know that?”

She smiles but it burns like a knife going into her chest.  She nods and cups his cheek in her hand and tries to pretend that adoration is fine.  Adoration is next to love, and maybe not everyone needs love. Maybe adoration is good enough.  “Back atcha.”

He smiles and smacks her butt lightly before shuffling back into the den.  She sighs to herself and then goes over to the sink to pour out the burnt oil and replace it with fresh.

+

“So leave him!”

“Steph.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes.  “Girl, it just ain’t right.  Two years, and you don’t live together, he hasn’t proposed, and he literally _will not_ say he loves you.”

“He’s been burnt a lot.”  She looks up at Stephanie and reaches up to wipe away her tears.  “He says he loves being with me.  He says he adores me.  I believe him, Steph.  That’s the thing, he doesn’t lie.  If he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t say it.  So I know he’s telling the truth that he adores me.”

“Okay so he’s been burnt.  So have you, but you said it,” Stephanie says, propping her butt against Melissa’s desk.  “Listen, I know he’s this wonderful, great guy.”

“No seriously, he is!”

Stephanie groans and pretends to rip her hair out.  “Melissa!”

“He is,” she says, voice overly loud.  Blushing she lowers her voice.  “He’s kind to me, he’s sweet, he’s super amazing in bed, and generous.  Have I told you about--”

Stephanie grins.  “How talented he is with his tongue, yeah, a few times.  But tell me again!”

Melissa laughs.  “Seriously, can I really ask for more?  He’s faithful, he doesn’t cheat, I know that.  He shares as much of his life with me as he can, Steph.”

“He makes you cry over yogurt at lunch, honey,” Stephanie says, standing up as their boss comes out of her office.  “Listen, for what it’s worth I get what you’re saying, that maybe it should be enough.  But the point is, it’s not for you.”  Shrugging she backs away to head back to her desk.  “How long do you want to waste your time?”

+

Danny’s not incapable of saying I love you, Melissa’s heard him say it plenty.  To Grace, to Charlie.  On the phone to his sisters and Mom.  She’s even been there to see him say it to Kono, one evening when she was over to have burgers with them and burst out in tears after Adam went away.

That one hurt.  She can’t begrudge him family, but watching him hug Kono and kiss her temple and say, “I’m so sorry, babe, I love you if that helps at all.”  Yeah.  That had hurt pretty damn bad.

Sitting next to him on the couch listening to him say it to Steve is like swallowing hot coals.

“Stop doing that, no I’m serious Steven!  You gotta stop pushing yourself past what they’re saying you’re allowed to,” he’d said, his arm around Melissa but his head turned away from her.  “Yeah, ya jerk, I’m concerned, of course I’m concerned, I gave you half my fucking liver!  I love you, I need to know you’ll be okay!”

The thing is, he didn’t even notice.  He didn’t notice her pull away, he didn’t notice that she had tears in her eyes, and he didn’t notice that her eyes were puffy when she got back from the bathroom.  He simply grinned up at her and offered her another bite of Rocky Road.

That evening she sinks to her knees in front of him on the couch, pulls his sweatpants down, and wraps her lips around his cock.  It hadn’t been three weeks, it had barely been two, since he’d gotten out of the hospital, but the doctor had actually said ‘strenuous sexual activity’ and she thinks a slow blowjob on the couch is probably okay.

“Oh,” he says, and she loves the way his voice sounds like that, low and hoarse like that.  She loves the way he smells, the way he tastes.  She loves the velvety feel of his cock against her tongue, the way he curls his fingers in her hair but doesn’t force her down or pull.  She loves the way he tries to stay still but can’t, bucking into the wet heat of her mouth when he loses himself, saying, “-- sorry, sorry, God, so good, fuck.”

She loves the way her name curls off his tongue like he’s drunk.  Loves the way he babbles, how he caresses her cheek.  The way he says, “Melissa, God your mouth, fuck yes, I’m not gonna last, oh baby, baby, gonna, gonna,” before he comes, his leg kicking out.  The his hand yanks on her hair in a way that just makes her wet instead of feeling trapped.  Loves watching him come down, slowly, loudly, like he can’t get enough, can’t stop saying how good, so good, she is.  

She kneels back and watches him, lost in it, twitching, hand on her cheek, and feels anger coil in her belly.

“God, you can’t even say it when I’m going down on you.”

His eyes fly open at her tone but she can tell the second what she said registers.  “Wh--”

“Forget it,” she says, standing.  “I have an early day tomorrow, I should go.”

“Say what,” he asks, sitting up and grabbing her hand.  He’s still hanging out of his underwear, flushed red in splotches on his chest, still breathing heavily, but the concern in his eyes is real and it makes her feel a little bad for not keeping her emotions in check.  “Babe, what happened?”

“I just.”  She rolls her eyes up and her hands flop inarticulately against her thighs.  “I love you, Danny.  I just love you, and you never say it.  And I’m not fighting with you, I’m not, I’m really not picking a fight, but it just hurts okay?  It hurts me that you don’t love me back.”

Looking at him, he looks so very incredibly sad that she actually feels badly for him.  Actually feels like she wants to take it all back.  How he can make her feel bad for her feelings being hurt, well.  It’s somehow another thing him and Frank share.  Danny doesn’t do it on purpose though, so really maybe it says more about her than anyone else.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, squeezing her hand.  “Melissa, I really am.  I so adore you, please believe me when I say that.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she says, taking her hand out of his.  “You just don’t love me.”

She leaves and goes home and cries the whole way there and knows before she gets there, she’ll still go back to him.  She hates herself a little bit more for that every day.

+

It’s three days before she gives in and answers him when he calls and agrees to come over that evening.  She’ll give him credit for that, he’s always been good about apologizing.  She’s just not sure he owes her any more apologies over this, is the thing.  

“Because is it even fair of me to keep getting upset with him for not loving me?  Like, that’s not even something you can force on someone.”

Stephanie takes a drag off of her cigarette and shrugs.  “I mean.  Kind of?  I guess it’s not that fair, he’s being honest.  Plenty of guys say I love you just to get you in their bed.”

“I kind of feel like,” she says, twisting the hem of her skirt between her fingers, sitting cross legged in the grass against the tree.  “Like I’m getting pissed at him for having blonde hair.  Like he doesn’t dye it, he doesn’t say it’s not blonde, he’s always said it’s blonde.  But I just keep expecting one day for it to be brown and when it’s not I’m just pissed.”

“You just need to decide,” Stephanie says, stamping out her cigarette.  “Like, can you handle him never ever saying that.  And if the answer is no, stop expecting it to happen and let it go.  You’re this gorgeous thing, who’s this fantastic person.  If he can’t after two years it’s not gonna happen, it’s not like it’s gonna magically happen where on that 753rd day he goes _oh wow_ suddenly.”

When she gets to his house he opens the door and has roses and a three course gourmet meal and soft music and candles but before he can say sorry she beats him too it.  “No, really. I’m sorry.  It’s not fair to keep beating you over the head with this.  I love you, and you adore me, and I’m happy.  Are you happy?”

“You make me as happy as I’ve been able to be in a long time, Melissa,” he says, taking her hands in his.  She’ll remember this later with warning bells in her mind but at the time she just heard he was happy.  She didn’t hear the qualifier until much later.

“Then can we just have a nice dinner and sit together on the couch and just be,” she asks, lifting his hand to kiss.  “I don’t want to fight.  I never wanted to fight.”

They wind up making out halfway through the news and when he reaches over to turn off the tv and slides his fingers inside of her underwear she thinks maybe she can do this.  The way his fingers slide against her, how he knows just how to use his index and middle finger in a counterclockwise motion against her clit to rev her up just that right amount before he slides a finger inside, slides two.  How he knows just how to crook it, and his tongue flicks over her exposed nipple at just the right time.  How perfectly he knows her body, how he worships it, makes her come in under five minutes, his cock hard against her thigh.

When he guides her onto him, her knees either side of him, he fills her up so perfect.  The way he winds his tongue with hers, mouths her neck, whispers her name as he thrusts up into her.  How his hands fit to her hips, how he says her name brokenly when he comes.   It’s enough.  

This is enough for her.  This is all she needs.

He’s so caring.  So careful.  So gentle.  So good to her.

  
It’s enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last half.

Steve gets out of the hospital a month after Danny had, and Danny is nervous the entire morning and starts pacing an hour before they’re meant to leave to go meet him at home.  Danny’s spent a lot of his days up at the hospital visiting so Melissa doesn’t really understand what Danny’s issue is until they get there.  He hovers like a mama bird around Steve from the moment they get there.   

“Will you sit already, Steven, what do you want, I’ll get it for you.”

“Danny, I’m fine.”

“I don’t like you here by yourself, you should come stay with me.  Or I’ll come stay here.”

“Danny, I’m fine.”

“What are you doing, where are you going, I can do it for you.”

“Danny for crying outloud, I’m gonna take a piss, not something you can do for me!”

“You gotta relax, man,” Lou says, putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder.  “The hospital wouldn’t’ve released him if he wasn’t recovered enough to be on his own.”

“Oh what do they know,” Danny grumbles, but he does settle down then-- at least outwardly.  Melissa can practically see him shouting inside his head though, sitting on his hands, holding himself back.

They all have dinner and everyone has a great time, but Danny watches Steve the whole night, and Melissa watches Danny.  When it’s time to leave Danny ramps himself up into full rant mode when Steve rolls his eyes at him about taking his medication.

And that’s when she gets it because when Steve says, “Danny, Jesus Christ, will you lay off?” Danny’s complexion blanches and his hands fist tightly at his side and he goes completely and utterly still, to the point that Steve actually stops smiling and takes a step forward out of concern.  “Danny?”

“I thought you died,” Danny says, quiet.  Still.  Melissa tightens her hands around his arm but he doesn’t even flinch in her direction.  “You… in front of me, Steven, I watched you.  You were.”  He swallows, looks away.  “I thought that I’d never…”  He stops again, blinking rapidly, and Melissa’s never seen him like this, this lost, this destroyed.  Not even when he found out Charlie was his.  “That I’d ever get to.  To tell you anything ever again.  Sit here on this fucking beach with you again.  Watch a stupid game on the--”

“Hey,” Steve says, and reaches out for Danny, but Danny takes a step back.  ”Danny, come on.”

“Hear your stupid laugh,” Danny says, voice breaking, cracking in the middle.  Out of the corner of her eye she sees Chin take Kono’s hand, Kono wipe away a stray tear from her face.  She’d known, she had, that it had been serious.  Of course she’d known, but it wasn’t until that moment that she really grasped just how close they’d all come to losing Steve for good.  “Look at your idiot face.”

Steve laughs slightly, tries to reach for Danny again but Danny jerks out of the way again.  

“So if I need to piss you off to get your to rest up and take it easy, I’m gonna do it,” Danny says, voice raising.  “And if I need to fucking hound you to take your pills, I’m gonna do it.  If I need to set my alarm and come over here every god damned morning and crush your pills up and hide them in applesauce to get you to take them, I’m going to god damn well do that.  And you can bitch all you want, hate me for all I care, but I’m fucking doing it.”

“Me too,” Kono pipes up.

“Three,” Chin echoes next.

“Hey,” Steve says, holding up his hands.  “Hey guys, I’m gonna take my pills, okay?  I promise.”  He catches Danny’s eye.  “I swear okay?  On Joanie.  On Gracie.  On Charlie.  I’ll take care of myself, swear on everything!”

“You don’t get to do that, asshole,” Danny says through gritted teeth.  “You got it? You don’t get to die on me again.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve says, and then he moves fast like lightening and envelops Danny in his arms and Danny lets go of her like he was never holding on at all and squeezes Steve so tight she can tell by Steve’s face that it actually legitimately hurts.  Not that he says one word.  “I’m okay, Danno.”

That night he wakes her up calling out Steve’s name, voice full of panic and desperation, saying “No, don’t do this, don’t do this, Steve, don’t you dare die on me!”

“Hey,” she says after she shakes him awake, curving on top of him and running her hand soothingly down his chest as he tries to breathe regularly again, covering his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.  “He’s okay, babe.  He’s gonna be fine.”

“Sorry,” he says finally, brushing her hair back behind her ear.  “Go back to sleep, I’m okay now.”

She traces patterns in his chest hair and listens to his breathing slowly calm down.  “It was pretty awful, huh,” she asks finally.  “When it happened, up there in the plane.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough.  “Pretty fucking awful.”

“Scary,” she asks quietly.

He’s quiet at first, and she thinks maybe he won’t answer.  His breath catches once and then again, and when she raises her head she can see he’s crying.  Or, more accurately, trying so very hard not to.  “Fucking terrifying, I was terrified.”

She buries her nose in his neck and tightens her arm around him, inserts her leg between his and hooks it around his.  “I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t lose him,” he says, breathing out loudly through pursed lips, trying to calm down.  He takes another deep breath in, arms tightening around her.  “I can’t.  If he… I can’t.  I just can’t Melissa, I can’t.”

“I know,” she says, and wonders just how long Danny’s been in love with Steve McGarrett right under her nose without her even knowing it.

Wonders how long he’s loved him without knowing it himself. 

+

They go on a double date with Steve and Lynn and have a really nice time.  Dinner and a movie, some Judd Apatow gross humor type of comedy that makes Steve laugh so loud that Danny worries he’ll pop a stitch.   They go out for drinks after, the girls with alcohol the boys without, and Lynn stands on top of the table when Cory Hart’s I Wear My Sunglasses at Night comes on and reaches down to grab Melissa’s hand, hauling her up there with her.

The lust in Steve’s eyes when she looks down at him as he watches Lynn jump and sway is palpable enough to stir something in her.  When she looks at Danny expecting to see similar she instead sees him smiling over at Steve as Steve says something under his breath.  Here she is in a short enough dress that she knows he’d be able to see her silky lace black underwear if he looked up at the right angle, swaying her hips in a way that’s making more than one man look her way, and Danny’s only got eyes for Steve’s quirked mouth.

“You ever thought about a threesome,” she whispers into his ear as they fall on his bed later that night, stumbling in from the taxi as they’d all been too drunk to drive.  “Two lips, two sets of hands, me in front of you on my knees, him behind you, his cock hard against your ass Danny?”

He sucks in a breath, hard, and his cock twitches against her belly.  “God, yeah.”

“You like that baby,” she whispers, pushing up his shirt, biting into his abdomen, near enough to his mostly healed scar to make him suck his belly in as it twinges.  It’s still stiff, still itchy, still something he hasn’t grown into, but his cock is hard and leaking precome as she takes it out of his jeans so he doesn’t mind as she scrapes her teeth against his skin again.  “You like the idea of him breathing on your neck, his hands on your ass, him biting your neck, kissing you, licking you under your ear like you like?”

“What are you--”

She doesn’t give him time to finish, shoves him over on his belly and yanks his pants down off his ass, bites at an ass cheek before soothing it with her tongue.  “You want his teeth on you, baby?  You want him to do this to you while I suck you off?  Your fingers in my hair, his digging into your hips hard enough to leave bruises.”

“Melissa fuck, where did this come from, Jesus that’s hot.”  She looks up from where she’s running her tongue between his asscheeks just above his asshole to see him craning his neck to look back at her as best he can.  

“What do you want him to do to you, Danny,” she whispers, curving her fingers around his balls, squeezing them, rolling them between her fingers.  “You want him to fuck you? You wanna fuck him? You wanna fuck me while he watches?  Watch him fuck me?”

Danny twists his hips and flips back over, leaning up to catch her under her arms and haul her on top of him, kissing her until she can’t breathe anymore and shoving a hand down her underwear beneath her dress.  

“You got anybody specific in mind,” he breathes against her, his fingers delving into her folds.   No slow build up this time, just down and dirty and fast enough to rip what  _ is _ left of her breath away.  “Someone you wanna fuck?  Want to fuck me?”

“Don’t you,” she asks, hand  wrapped around his hard cock, pressing her mouth against his throat, biting him harder than she normally would.  “Hm?  Gonna admit it Danny?  You want him.  You want his hands on you, you want his tongue on you, you want him fucking you.   _ Don’t lie to me. _ ”

He freezes then, two fingers crooked inside of her but not moving anymore, his shoulders stiff as he pants and pulls back to look at her, his fingers slipping out with him.  She blinks and realizes she’s pushed him too far. She’s pushed this whole thing too far.  She doesn’t even know what she was thinking to begin with.

She doesn’t even know  _ if _ she was thinking.

She watches him swallow and compartmentalize, sort out his thinking before he speaks, and she can not fucking stand when he does this.  She cannot stand the gentle way he is with her when it comes to real things.  Cannot fucking take the way he never says what he means, never spits it out, never says the first thing that comes to his mind.  

Always sorts through his thoughts, files away what not to say, what not to ask, what not to divulge.  How to say things, how to approach them, how to sound when he says them.

Can’t fucking stand it.

“I’m sorry, Danny,” she spits out, and jerks back, backing away from him towards the edge of the bed, putting one foot on the floor.  “Okay?  Is that what you want?  I’m sorry I’m not him.”  She bites the inside of her cheek and fights the urge to beat his chest with her own fists for the way he simply looks at her, a thousand thoughts flying through his eyes but not a damn thing coming out.  “If I was him, would you love me then?”

Danny takes a deep breath and sits back on his heels.  “Him.”  He motions with his hand.  “You’re gonna have to come right out and tell me what you’re talking about because I don’t--”

Melissa grits her teeth and her hands clench into fists in her lap.  “I swear to God you’re fucking infuriating right now Danny.”

He throws his hands out.  “Fine.  Fine,” he yells, his jaw clenching, and she thinks finally.  Finally.  “Do you want me to lie? Do you want me to say I love you?  I can say it if that's what you want,” he spits out, and he grasps onto his legs hard enough for his fingertips to leave indents.  “It keeps coming back to this, and I don’t understand why you stay.  If it hurts you so much, why stay?!”

She laughs bitterly.  “Believe me, I’ve asked myself that very same question a million fucking times, Danny.”

He closes his eyes and hangs his head and when he speaks again he no longer sounds angry but sad, and tired as hell.  “I don't want to keep hurting you baby.  I just.  I'm sorry,” he says, looking back up and creeping forward until he can take her hands in his.  He doesn’t pull her towards him, just holds her there, thumbs over hers.  “I am, Meliss, I’m so sorry, but I don't love you in the same way you love me.  That all encompassing, can't stand the thought of living without out you, die without you love.”

“Believe it or not, I know that,” she says softly, anger slowly draining but still there, thrumming under the surface.  

His hands tighten on her hands.  “It's not even that I don't love you,” he says, taking a deep breath.  “Because I do.  I care very, very deeply about your happiness and well being, and your laughter, making you laugh is one of the highlights of my…  You’re one of the best things in my life right now, please know that.”

She nods, looking down at their hands.  “But.”

“But I don’t say it, I haven’t said it, because I don’t think it’s...”  He cuts himself off and shakes his head, tugging on her hand to get her to look up at him.  “I know.  I know it’s not the same as the love you mean when you say it to me.  It's not--"

She nods again and walks off the cliff.  As much for him as for herself.  "The way you feel about Steve."

His mouth works open several times as all of the color drains out of his face and she thinks for a moment that he may vomit right here on the bed.  His mouth twists sickly and his eyes shine and she wants to take it back, just rip it right back out of the air, say she never meant it to begin with.

He lets out a shuddering breath.  "Steve." 

"Yeah Danny.” she says, and now it’s her holding  _ his _ hands, her tightening her grip on  _ him _ .  “The way you love me.  It's not the same love you feel for Steve."  

Danny frowns and shakes his head.  "I.  Melissa, I…  This isn’t.  Steve has nothing--"

She pulls her hands back and he flails trying to catch them but she doesn’t let him.  "Please don't deny it.” she says, placing her hands on her neck as she stands by the side of the bed looking down at him.  “Please respect me enough to not deny it. "

He blinks and looks…  Quite honestly, he looks terrified.    "Yes,” he says.  He says it like he is actually physically pained by it, and it twists in her gut that she’s forcing him into this. “I love Steve.”  He nods and swallows.   “I am in love with Steve."  

She closes her eyes and even through the hurt feels relief.  "Storybook love right,” she asks, her posture relaxing, muscles unclenching, anger almost all but gone.  She wants it back.  Anger is so much easier than whatever this is.  “That all encompassing die without you…”  She laughs then and a tear falls out.  “... give you my liver love?"  

He lifts his hands in a helpless gesture and looks so lost, so broken.  Wrecked and bowled over and like maybe, just maybe, he feels just as gutted about it as she does.  “If it's any consolation I wish to fucking God I didn't. But yeah."

His voice breaks as he says it and she remembers the night she asked him how it had felt up there, flying the plane without knowing if Steve was going to make it or not, a gun at his back.  The way his breath caught.  How he’d tried so hard not to cry but had anyway, even though she’d pretended not to feel his tears in her hair.

She gets on her knees on the bed and makes her way to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him up tight against her. “I’m sorry, baby,” she says, and the thing is, she really means it.

“I don’t deserve you.”

She smiles as his arms come around her.  “Probably not.”

“No one does,” he says into her neck.  “No one’s good enough for you.  I’m a piece of shit, and you should leave me.”

“No you’re not,” she says, stroking her hand down over his hair.  “We can’t help who we love.”

“I am,” he says, holding her tightly in his arms even as he’s trying to tell her to go.  And she gets that.  She really does, because hasn’t she been doing that this whole time too?  “I really, really am, Meliss.  You should leave me.  Walk out that door and never look back.”

“Shh,” she says, threading her fingers through his hair.  “Just hush, okay, Jersey?  Shut up already.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispers into her hair.  

“Hush,” she says, leaning back and tilting his chin to look up at her and brushing her lips over his.  “Just be quiet, huh?”

They do wind up having sex that night but it’s not the feverish, desperate thing it started out as.  In the end, she knows it’s over, even if she still can’t quite make herself walk away from it.  Not like this, him sleeping next to her naked, and vulnerable, wetness on his cheeks they both pretend isn’t there.  

Laying next to him she’ll think back to all the times she let things go, all the things she ignored.  All the times she allowed herself to be so willfully obtuse, so stupid, so blind, so quick to excuse.  Not just with Danny, with everyone, for so, so long.  Danny was just the latest in a long line of her doing this to herself.

She wonders if Frank started it, or if he was just the one to use it the most to his advantage.

+

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“No, really Melissa, I mean wow,” Stephanie says, pursing her lips.  “I mean, and you still don’t leave him?”

Melissa sighs, covering her face.  “I couldn’t.  You didn’t see his face, Steph.”

“Listen, I know, okay,” Stephanie says, reaching over and taking Melissa’s hand in hers.  “I know he’s this great guy, and you love him.  I know he’s good to you, and all these things about him are so wonderful, and I believe you.  I do.  I know he’s amazing.”

Melissa blinks and a tear falls.  “He is.”

“But he’s in love with a man,” Stephanie says softly.  “He’s in love, and it’s not with you.  It’s not even in love with him as well as you.  Just him.  He loves  _ him _ .  He doesn’t love you, Melissa.”

Melissa nods.  “I know.”

“And he won’t,” Stephanie says, squeezing her hand.  “He can’t.”

“But maybe it’s okay,” Melissa says, and then she laughs, shrugging, rolling her eyes.  “I mean, maybe it’s even that way.  Maybe that’s how it’s meant to be.”

Stephanie shakes her head.  “What are you talking about?”

“Neither one of us gets the one we want,” Melissa says, and she bites her lip to keep from letting out the sob she can feel building at the base of her throat.  “Maybe that’s okay. I don’t get Danny, not really, not the part of him I want, and he…. He doesn’t get Steve.”

Stephanie sighs and looks at her.  “Loving the one you’re with is never enough, Melissa.  Not when you’re just the one they’re with.”

+

It hadn’t been her intention to test him, them really, when she’d picked it to wear.  Hadn’t been her idea, exactly, not on a conscious level anyway.  Standing there on Steve’s beach though, wet hair hanging limply down to her ass in front of both Steve and Danny dressed in a skimpy tangerine colored bikini that covers just barely enough to be not obscene, she has her answer anyway.

Because it’s Steve Danny’s looking at.  Steve in long boardies and no shirt, pecs hard, thick arm muscles moving as he brings the rootbeer to his lips.  Danny watching the way his lips wrap around the neck of the bottle as Steve laughs and takes his swallow.

Which he’s admitted as much by now.  It’s been a month since he’s admitted his feelings for Steve.    A month in which she’s actually felt even closer to him than she’s felt for the past two years, because he’s relaxed so much.  He’s let his guard down, started telling her things.  Started not censoring himself as much.  Admitting when things are hard.  Telling her how difficult it is to sit next to this man and know how much he loves him, but knowing nothing will ever come of it.

And he’s still not said I love you, but she feels like maybe he does.  Like maybe he loves her in a way that really counts.  She’s not his trophy, not this pretty thing on his arm.  She’s not the young thing keeping him warm in bed, she’s his confidant.  She’s the one person he can come to with this.  The one person who knows the thing that no one else knows.  It makes her feel special, and important, needed, the way he looks at her.

Like he’d spin out if he didn’t have her.  Like he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t have her.

Except there’s one vital missing piece and that’s this:  He doesn’t see the way Steve looks at  _ him. _

Danny goes inside to grab the steaks out of the fridge, prepare the marinade to bathe them in.  Steve smiles at her and winks and tips his bottle of rootbeer at her and she locks eyes with him and nods.  

“You love him,” she says, because it’s not a question.

He freezes, she’s pretty certain because it  _ hadn’t  _  been a question.  It’s an answer in and of itself.

“Course I do.  He’s my Danno.”

“Yeah,” she says, laughing and turning to look out at the ocean, wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes into the sun.  Giving him her back because maybe he’ll be more honest to that than he is to her face.  “But we both know that’s not it.”

After a pause, he speaks.  His tone quiet.  Angry.  Hearing it she can see why suspects give under his pressure.  She would, except this isn’t about her.  Not anymore.  Maybe it hadn’t ever been.  “Then what is it?”

“What is it,” she repeats, clasping her arms over her chest.  The waves wash over her feet gently before receding back into the ocean.  “What it is, is two men being absolute idiots, and me being an even bigger one.”

“What are you asking,” he says, voice just behind her.  She can feel the heat radiating off of him, he’s standing so close.   

“Did I ask,” she says, tilting her head as she turns to face him.  “I don’t think I need to  _ ask _ .  You look at him the way I want him to look at me, Steve.”

“I don’t mean to.”

She blinks.  He holds her gaze and doesn’t back down.  She’d been afraid he’d be tougher than even Danny had been.  Laugh her off.  Dismiss her outright.  He doesn’t owe her anything, she’s just this person his partner’s been dating.  They don’t have a bond beyond Danny.  She’s nothing to him.

“Does Lynn know?”

Steve looks away then, and takes a step back.  “Lynn knows where we stand.  Lynn is…”

“A placement holder,” Melissa asks, arching an eyebrow.  “A time waster?”

Steve’s jaw clenches and he raises his bottle to his lips to drink but it’s empty.  He stalls, staring down at it.  “A friend.  Lynn is a friend.”

“Right.  I’m the one that’s a time waster,” she says, nodding and grinning.  She laughs at his confused expression.  “The placement holder.  The one he’ll love because he thinks he can’t have the one he wants.  Who thinks they can’t have him.  Who has their own…”  She smirks.  Snorts.  “Fill in  _ friend. _ ”

“All right,” Danny says as he makes his way back to them, clapping his hands together and grinning.  “They are marinating in what I will have you know it’s a time tested and Williams-approved--”  He stops as he reaches them, and points at Melissa’s face.  “What just happened?”  He whirls on Steve.  “Did you do something neanderthal?  Are you being rude again?”

Steve looks from Melissa to Danny and back to Melissa.  “I think Melissa here is trying to tell me you have feelings for me.”

Danny’s face blanches, all color draining out of it as he takes three steps back.  “Wh.”  He takes another step back and all but falls into the chair behind him.  “I.”

“Not trying to,” Melissa says.  “I’m saying it outright.”

Danny looks at her, absolutely betrayed.  “Meliss?”

Steve turns to face Danny.  “Do you?”

Danny closes his eyes, covering his face and scrubbing at it.  “This isn’t.  This is a dream.  No.  No, this is a nightmare. This is not real.  I’ve hit my head.  I’m in the hospital.”

Melissa picks up her shirt, putting it on over her bathing suit top.  “Just admit it, Danny.  Say it.”

“Yes,” Danny says, his eyes locked on Melissa’s.  “I said it. I’ve said it. I’ve told you, Melissa.  I’ve admitted it.  Why are you doing this?”

Steve lets out a rush of air and Melissa laughs, rolling her eyes skyward.  She would have thought she’d be angry.  She would have sworn to it.  “Both of you are such idiots.”

Danny’s looking at Steve now, who’s gone just the slightest bit pale himself.  “Steven?”

“I love you,” Steve says, a little breathless, a lot scared.  “Danny, I.  You.”

Melissa slips her feet into her sandals and shimmies her shorts up her thighs, buttoning and zipping them.  “I’m gonna take that as my cue.”

Danny’s standing, staring at Steve even as he tries to reach out and grab Melissa’s wrist.  “Wait.  Melissa, wait, I’ll drive you.” 

“Actually, tell you what,” she says, leaning over and digging in his pocket for his keys.  “I’ll drive to your place to get my things.  Steve can give you a ride home later. I’ll leave the keys for you in your kitchen.”

Danny turns to face her, fingers wrapping around both her arms as he pulls her closer.  “Melissa.”

“Be good to yourself,” she says, and leans over to kiss him chastely on the mouth.  One last time.  “I love you.”

“Hey Melissa,” he says as she grabs her purse and heads towards his car.  “I do, ya know.  Love you.”

And it’s not the way she wanted it, it’s not how she imagined it, but she knows it’s true.  

  
She waves, smiles and means it, and turns her back on him.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr here under [@lovethesnark](http://lovethesnark.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Fanfiction Website  
> MOST of my fic is not on AO3, though all of my H5O and beyond is as AO3 didn't exist yet and it was too much to archive. It can be found on my website at [LoveTheSnark.com](http://www.lovethesnark.com).


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